BOARDS & MODULES HIGHLIGHTS

SMARC – new Computer-on-Module standard for ARM/SoC designs

By Gerhard Szczuka, Kontron

With Smart Mobility ARChitecture (SMARC), SGET has ratified the first manufacturer-independent Computer-on-Module standard for purebred ARM/SoC designs. Figure 1. Kontron already The specification was developed has three different SMARC specially for Smart Mobility, but modules on offer: the SMARC- many stationary applications sAT30 with graphics-heavy also profit from these highly efficient 3, the especially SFF modules. Several modules, widely scalable SMARC- evaluation platforms and starter kits siMX6 with Freescales i.MX6 are already on the market. single, dual and quad-core processors and the ultra low- power SMAR- sA3874 with Ti Sitara AM3874.

 The new high-capacity ARM processors, as tem such as the processor, relevant controllers, ence to COM solutions with manufacturer-in- developed for modern and tablets, NAND memory and main memory on a highly dependent standardization. Ultimately, they for example, impress developers with their integrated and consequently compact COTS clearly offer more design reliability than man- high performance and low energy requirements. component. The individual solution is designed ufacturer-specific modules. For long-term suc- Thanks to these characteristics, manufacturers via carrier boards to be developed in an appli- cess, these standards should have especially of long-term available, rugged industrial de- cation-specific fashion. They implement the broad support among the manufacturers. And vices, machines and systems can implement signal lines from the module to the system in- it’s not just the small and medium-sized ones, solutions with these processors that they were terfaces and integrate additional application- but more than anything the big manufacturers. not able to offer either with less complex ARM specific components such as sensors or con- designs or with more capable x86 designs. trollers. Carrier boards offer developers a par- One standard for all technologies however, is Consequently, a very attractive gap in the mar- ticularly high degree of design freedom for on the other hand not recommendable. Man- ket has been bridged by making a comparatively their size and shape: only the minimum foot- ufacturer-independent standards have to be large graphics and computing performance print is defined via the module size. Due to designed in a consistent and focused fashion. available in the lower single-digit watt range. the very sophisticated design and layout of However, too many options that are not com- Thanks to the low energy consumption, fanless, Computer-on-Modules, a carrier board is also patible with one another dilute the enforcement rugged and extremely compact system designs noticeably easier and quicker to develop than of a standard. Special forms, interim solutions are now possible. Heat removal is often just a a completely customized board. and hybrid functions should be avoided, wher- question of connection to the enclosure, but ever possible. But is there such a Computer- as a rule an optimized SFF design like this re- With this modular approach, the module man- on-Module standard that focuses on ARM/SoC quires a highly integrated individual design. ufacturer alone shoulders the integration outlay designs? An approach is needed that allows manufac- for the processor. That makes Computer-on- turers and mechanical engineers to integrate Modules an ideal choice for efficient develop- In the past, developers of ARM-based solutions this new class of processors in their applications ment of individual designs. Studies by IMS had no support under these conditions. Until with the least possible design outlay. and VDC indicate an average annual growth recently, there was no Computer-on-Module rate of 25 percent for ARM-based COMs by standard adopted by an independent body For this, OEMs require finished building blocks 2016, showing how big the need for such ARM that took the specific requirements of that allow them a high level of design freedom building blocks is. This enormous growth will ARM/SoC processors into account. The existing and the compactness of a full custom design catapult the portion of ARM-COMs traded to module standards such as ETX and COM Ex- while still effectively minimizing development only just under 60 percent of the total COM press, which are the most significant COM expenditures and risks. Computer-on-Modules market. In an environment as dynamic as this, standards worldwide, were developed for x86 (COMs) take exactly this approach. They inte- it is important for developers to bet on the architectures and are less suitable for ARM or grate the core components of a computer sys- right horse. They should therefore give prefer- SoC processor modules. The reason is that,

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due to the very different requirements for the tions. This means that developers do not have with an extensive ecosystem of scalable products power supply of the components and the to compromise or take x86 conventions into ac- and services with which they can implement sometimes very different requirements in terms count that are not relevant on ARM/SoC designs. new SFF applications quickly and reliably and of interfaces, it makes little sense diluting these Kontron has taken on this task and submitted a obtain a reliable migration path. standards. suitable module draft to the Standardization Group for Embedded Technologies (SGET). The SMARC specification describes extremely Last but not least, ARM-SoCs also provide This draft has now been officially ratified. flat ARM/SoC-based, ultra low-power com- other interfaces than x86 platforms for similar puter-on-modules. They define two module tasks. MIPI interfaces are a good example for With ratification of the SMARC form factor sizes: short with 82 mm x 50 mm for extremely an energy-efficient display connection, and specification, a dedicated standard for ARM- compact low-power designs and a larger one also the serial peripheral interface (SPI) which based building blocks now exists. SMARC with 82 mm x 80 mm for possible future high- is used for general peripheral connection, in stands for Smart Mobility ARChitecture. This er-capacity SoCs with an increased space and contrast to x86 where the SPI interface is architecture for ARM/SoC is characterized by cooling requirement. The proven and inex- only used for connection of a boot device. extremely flat Computer-on-Modules and was pensive MXM 3.0 plug connector was chosen ARM-based processors also provide other spe- almost immediately adopted by SGET. That as connector. With its installation height of cific interfaces such as I²S or – very important underlines both the great need for a new man- only 4.3 millimetres, specially flat designs such – various camera ports. So far they are not ufacturer-independent form factor standard as tablets or wearable computers can be devel- available in the x86 standard feature set. If you and also the impact of the new group. This oped with an overall installation height that is take all this into account, it becomes apparent new standard means that customers profit less that one centimetre. On the electrical side, that all known COM concepts that were origi- from a reliable roadmap with a high level of SMARC modules have a total of 314 pins. nally developed for x86 processors and I/Os long-term availability which also ensures the SMARC effectively provides 281 I/O signal are not ideally suitable for ARM designs. reusability of their investments. This high reuse lines. That is already 50 more than the old factor makes it possible for OEMs to lower MXM 2.0 connector has altogether, for example. Subsequently, a purebred ARM/SoC-centered their costs and ensure quick market launch Consequently, clearly more dedicated interfaces module form factor is required for ARM-SoC- times. And they are also manufacturer-inde- can be specified as interoperable here. SMARC based building blocks. The feature set should pendent. Basically, users get exactly what made can thus support an extremely broad range of correspond exactly to these new processor gen- COM Express in the x86 world the most-used dedicated ARM and SoC processors, which erations and in addition should have an espe- module specification: a standard exactly tailored also accommodates the heterogeneity of ARM cially small footprint suitable for SFF applica- to the specific requirements. It provides them processors. BOARDS & MODULES HIGHLIGHTS

high-end solution just by means of the module used. They are oriented to intelligent devices that require balanced processor and graphics performance. Depending on the SoC design, they integrate one or two independent graphics engines with up to four 3-D for life- like visualizations. A video decoder and encoder that can process videos up to full HD (1080 p) with 60 Hz is also integrated. Among the other advantages there is the above-average long-term availability of least 10 years. In addition, the SMARC COMs equipped with this processor are developed by Kontron to work in the ex- tended temperature range of -40 °C to +85 °C.

The new modules based on the Texas Instru- ments Sitara AM3874 processor specially target Figure 2. With their interfaces optimized to low-power designs, ARM-SoC-based modules also cost-sensitive applications with the slimmer require a specification optimized especially for ARM/SoC. ARM Cortex A8 single-core design. Their ex- tremely low power consumption makes them attractive and, thanks to the extended temper- ature range of -40 °C to +85 °C, they effortlessly brave the effects of wind and weather and are thus ideally suited for outdoor installations. Ti-Sitara modules support 3-D graphics accel- eration and HD video processing. Two inde- pendent displays can be connected via 18/24- bit parallel LCD or 18/24-bit single-channel LVDS and HDMI. In addition, a parallel camera interface is integrated. At other interfaces, for example, 2 x SPI, 4 x I²S, 4 x multifunctional I²C and a dual CAN bus are supported.

Carrier boards for evaluation are also available for all these new SMARC modules. In accor- dance with the requirements of different ARM- based solutions for dedicated interfaces, they Figure 3. Software services on the part of the hardware manufacturers are clearly gaining in sig- support various interfaces and various solid- nificance so as to make entry into the ARM world as easy as possible for customers. state memories. But such a standard evaluation board could hardly meet the requirements of And since this concept impressed not only the military technology. The integrated NVIDIA- the individual SFF applications. As a rule, an initiator from the very beginning, the first GeForce GPU makes these processor modules individual carrier board is required for the product lines already became available at the especially interesting. In conjunction with specific application. OEMs themselves can de- same time as the ratification of the new SMARC ARM it currently delivers the highest graphics velop a fitting board design. But alternatively, standard. OEMs can directly resort to a broad performance for up to two independent dis- most suppliers also offer the development of range of Computer-on-Modules and evaluation plays. Among its outstanding performance fea- application-specific carrier boards; for example, boards. Currently there is a choice of SMARC tures are HD video decoding, including MPEG2 selected sales partners of Kontron are in a po- module families with ARM Cortex A8 or ARM and HD video encoding. In addition, they sition to offer this service. In addition, when Cortex A9 designs. The range extends from provide camera support via two dual-lane CSI- larger quantities are required it makes sense modules with the graphics-heavy NVIDIA 2 camera ports. Although they are based on to merge the module with the carrier into a Tegra 3 processor and the especially broadly the same processor technology as the highest- full custom design. Most module manufac- scalable i.MX6 family from Freescale with sin- performance tablets and smartphones which turers or their value-added resellers offer this gle-, dual- and quad-core processors, all the are currently available in the consumer segment, too. However, the precondition for this is a way to the ultra low-power they have the typical embedded long-term suitable development team which also has Sitara AM3874. By taking a closer look at the availability of seven years. the potential to implement the individual in- feature set of these new modules, the band- terfaces both on the hardware side as well as width which it can cover becomes apparent. Attractive graphics are also possible with the on the software side. Freescale i.MX6 modules. But the versatility is - SMARC modules on the basis of the NVIDIA thanks to the high level of scalability - even A standard-based hardware offer is only one Tegra 3 quad-core processor with 1.2 GHz more impressive. Their 800 MHz ARM Cortex building block within the complex structure and ARM Cortex A9 architecture are oriented A9 performance ranges from single and dual to of a low-power SFF application. The second to image-centric applications for markets such quad-core. This scalability offers the option of important question is: what about the software as POS/POI, infotainment, digital signage, se- developing entire product lines that facilitate a support? Due to the dedicated design of the curity and monitoring as well as medical and differentiation from the entry model to the ARM processors and the accompanying closer

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linkage of hardware and software, application drivers so as to then successively integrate nents are added to the carrier board, they like- developers likewise require dedicated software them. With ARM technology, the precondition wise have to be integrated in the boot loader. support. This is especially the case due to the has to be created already in the boot loader And just as application-specific BIOS configu- fact that the new processors also represent through integration and adaptation of the rations are required, they also have to be completely new processor architecture for drivers to support the dedicated processor created for the boot loader. Here, too, the some of the new applications. So what are the platform and the required peripherals. This question is open as to who can help if boot main considerations? The operating system results in a noticeably greater significance and loader expertise is needed. Ideally, this range support first counts for software-side applica- implementation outlay for board support of tasks should also be covered by the hardware tion development: which OSs can be used packages than is the case with x86 designs. If module manufacturer, since this is where the and is the specific hardware configuration- OEMs integrate additional components via most in-depth knowledge of the system is. supported? the carrier board that are not part of the stan- dard equipment for these processors, then of Software services on the part of the hardware Each manufacturer can only answer individu- course their drivers also have to be integrated manufacturers are clearly gaining in significance ally for its modules. Nonetheless, general re- in the boot loader. so as to make entry into the ARM world as quirement profiles can be established. In ac- easy as possible for customers. Customers cordance with the purpose of the new SFF ap- Therefore, a comprehensive board support should therefore make sure that the software plications, primarily slim operating systems package is an absolute must for ARM-based department of the embedded hardware manu- that can be compiled as needed with a small modules. If the service of the hardware manu- facturer is effective enough to also be able to storage footprint are in demand. Above all facturer would actually include driver porting implement these services. Many embedded Linux, the Linux-based Android and Windows of the individual components used on the car- manufacturers outsource these services. But Embedded Compact 7 are interesting. Vx- rier board, that would be a bonus. A software from the customer perspective it is clearly Works including Hypervisor, QNX and Green- department has to be available for this. Then more efficient if the customer receives this hills are suitable for hard real-time applications. it can also offer direct support when adapting service from a single , directly from the According to all expectations, subsequent Win- the boot loader. Where x86 technology relies module manufacturer. Companies such as dows versions are also becoming interesting. on the BIOS, with ARM processors loading Kontron offer software support in-house for In contrast to x86 platforms however, an ap- the firmware of the individual components is the most part. The company has more than proach such as was taken with x86 operating done via a boot loader. That indeed speeds up 1,000 development engineers worldwide. More systems is not possible on ARM-SoCs: first the process, but may be unfamiliar than two thirds of them work in software run the operating system and identify missing terrain for many OEMs. If dedicated compo- development. 

49 February 2013